Adventures in Narnia

We read the next couple of chapters today. Josiah sat next to me, and read Edmund’s lines, so that kept him occupied, and we’d bought some real Turkish Delight to try, so that kept them all happy.

Vocab words:
• Chapter 3 - spiteful, sulk, gilded
• Chapter 4 - courtier, naiad, dryad

After chapter 3 we discussed some of the activity questions: Anna did ‘what would your answer be if the Witch asked you “what are you?” ‘. Abbie thought about whether she would believe her sister if presented with the story that Lucy told her brothers and sister, and what proof she would need in order to believe it.

The girls are going to be making Turkish Delight again at Friday Fish tomorrow, too. I’m happy now, as we’re just ahead of the Friday Fish schedule for sessions, which was where I wanted to be. It will be a much more leisurely pace between now and Christmas, as I only want to finish this book before then, not worry about starting any more until the New Year.

We read the first couple of chapters of the book today. This catches us up to the part the girls ‘did’ at their kids’ club. I’d like to get ahead, ideally, but not sure if we will. It seems easier to read as even Joe has a bit of a grip on the story already, he managed to concentrate better today, and the girls just got on with it as usual.

Vocab words:
• Chapter 1 - ‘wireless’. Interesting how the meaning of that has changed recently!
• Chapter 2 - ‘inquisitive’, which I was surprised that Anna couldn’t define, although I think she knew the meaning of it really.

Activities from the study guide that we did briefly:
• Discussed which war the story is set in. The girls both knew that it was WWII but weren’t sure when exactly that was. The concept of evacuation is fairly familiar as a theme from other children’s stories, and also from having watched the news over the past few weeks, with the evacuations due to hurricanes in America.
• Talked about why Mr Tumnus called Lucy a ‘Daughter of Eve’, and why boys would be called ‘Sons of Adam’ by the same terminology. I’m happy to present this as a natural progression from Biblical creation, which is the main ‘beginning of the world’ theory we use in this family (well, I do!) … and I didn’t want to get into discussion on *that* issue this early in the morning!
• Discussed what causes Winter. Appallingly shocked that none of my children seemed to have a clue what makes the Seasons, will have to find an appropriate book or something! I know Anna *did* know this, I remember demonstrating it to her with the globe … head like a sieve, that girl
• Talked about whether Lucy was wise to go off with the first Faun she met in a strange magical land. The kids unanimously decided that she was silly, as the Faun was a stranger and Lucy didn’t know what he was like. Wonder where they’ve picked up that stranger-danger stuff, as I’ve *never* talked about it with them. Also, we thought about what might have happened if Mr Tumnus had turned Lucy over to the White Witch?
• Decided to have a ‘Mr Tumnus’s tea’ tonight - actually, we decided that before I read it in the study guide! So a very healthy boiled egg, sardines on toast, buttered toast, honey on toast, and sugar topped cake is on the menu this evening

Read the last chapter today while the children were eating tea. Nice to have it knocked on the head. Joe and Abbie loved the part about the apple tree being made into the wardrobe, and the happy ending with Digory’s mother being healed by the magic apple.

There is a crossword in the study guide which uses all the vocabulary words with clues, by way of review, so we might give that a try … or we might just do one of the quizzes from the link in the top right hand corner of the blog - the crossword looks hard even to me!

No vocab words in our unit study today, so we read two chapters of our book instead. And we weren’t really inspired by any of the assignments so we didn’t bother today - well, Abigail made a crown, which was one of the suggestions. Sometimes it feels as though plodding on with an ‘activity’ after the chapter detracts from the enjoyment of the story, so I don’t mind not doing them sometimes! We’re planning to read the last chapter of the book later on today, whether we get round to it remains to be seen.

My friend Maria came round last night and we tested a couple of turkish delight recipes, as she is going to make turkish delight with the kids’ club in a couple of weeks. Found a definite winner in terms of ease of making and best result - this recipe from the C S Lewis Website. We didn’t use the nuts though. It didn’t *quite* set hard enough to slice into cubes, but hard enough to, for example, roll into truffle sized balls and then powder with icing sugar. Might have gone harder in the fridge overnight, I suppose, I’ll have to test it again this morning. Also, I personally would use more rosewater than given in the recipe, double, perhaps.

Word of the day: fledge. An easier one to understand, thankfully! The children enjoyed this chapter, where Strawberry is given wings, renamed Fledge, and then Polly and Digory fly with him to find the garden. Even Josiah was better today. If only someone would bring out a version of the book with a picture on every page, we’d be fine.

Anyway. There is a line in the chapter that Strawberry says about Aslan: ‘I’m sure he knew you needed that but I have a feeling he likes to be asked’. The Bible activity from the study guide picked up on this, relating it back to how the Bible teaches us to pray, and whether God knows what we need, etc. Anna read a couple of the verses, Josiah read one, and we discussed it briefly together.

Read chapter 11 today. Vocabulary word was ’sagacious’, which I’d never heard of, so I’m learning as well.

After the reading we briefly talked about the Cabby’s reaction to having been asked to be King of Narnia, and compared it to reactions of Bible characters when appointed to do things - for example Moses (who tried giving a number of reasons why he couldn’t lead the Israelites out of Egypt), and Saul (who hid behind a load of bags when Samuel anointed him King of Israel).

The children then did the art assignment, which was just to draw a picture of Uncle Andrew being planted by the animals, and to include all the animals mentioned. This provoked huge moaning from Anna who decided she couldn’t fit all the animals into one picture, and she couldn’t draw dogs, or moles, or elephants. Hmmm. She then managed to produce a lovely picture, albeit with Uncle Andrew in the style of Elvis, as she was being stroppy, but it was quite amusing. Abbie worked hard on hers, and so did Josiah, he drew a fantastic elephant!

Read chapter ten today The girls are definitely getting more out of the reading than Joe, although he is enjoying the story as well, his concentration span just isn’t quite there. Anyway. Vocabulary words today were ‘faun’, ’satyr’, and ‘naiad’, all useful words to know I suppose

After the reading we looked at one of the Bible activities together - the study guide was making the comparison between Uncle Andrew’s reaction (of convincing himself that lions can’t sing & animals can’t talk) to Aslan/the founding of Narnia, and the Pharisees in the gospels who refused to hear Jesus’ message. An interesting parallel, not sure I would have got there myself, but there we go.

Trying to get TMN finished before next Friday because a club that the girls go to is starting to ‘do’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there as well, so it would be good to try and align/tie in with that. I think we’re just about on track

We read chapter nine this morning. Kids were more fidgety than usual - I really don’t know how people manage to read more than one chapter of a book out loud in one sitting - either my lot just aren’t used to it, or they all have ADHD or something! One chapter is about our limit.

Anyway, it’s one of my favourite parts of the book, I love the idea of the animals coming up from the earth, and the birds flying out from the trees as Aslan sings.

Words for today were ‘lilting’ and ‘ostentatious’. After reading the chapter, between us we’ve done all the assignments from the study guide today.

One was a Bible one, just looking at verses describing Jesus’ place at Creation, so we did that together. On reading ‘He is the image of the invisible God’ Josiah rolled his eyes, looked at me, and said ‘I *know* they’re both invisible’

The second one was to make a plant notebook either by looking at real plants or encyclopedia pictures, so Anna’s been doing that. She’s actually just done a miniature book, but she’s working really hard on it, and it looks beautiful so far.

The third activity was to draw a big tree, cut out birds from magazines and make a collage, but we didn’t really have any suitable magazines so Abbie decided to do a drawing instead, which she’s worked equally hard on.

Forgot to mention the ‘homework’ I gave the children. After we’d read the chapter today I challenged them to try and use the keyboard to compose a piece of music to represent the Voice(s) singing. They were quite interested by the idea but haven’t done anything about it yet. I said there was no time limit, it’s just something they can work on if they want to.